Plenty of fairy tales unfold every spring at Churchill Downs, and one of the best this meet has been Mercante, a gelding who returned from a long layoff under trainer Brian Knippenberg’s care to become a multiple graded stakes winner. He has enjoyed an outstanding run at Churchill, just missing in the Grade 1 Turf Classic on the Kentucky Derby undercard before winning the Grade 3 Arlington Stakes on May 31.
Mercante was the morning-line favorite for the Grade 2, $500,000 Wise Dan Stakes on Saturday, the penultimate day of this Churchill Downs meet. But the clock struck midnight a bit early for Mercante, who will be scratched from the race, leaving the opportunity for someone else to step into the glass slippers on one of the meet’s biggest cards.
After Mercante breezed on June 21, Knippenberg said the gelding “just kind of backed out of the feed tub a little bit.” Mercante’s attitude, plus the heat dome that settled over Kentucky this week, prompted the trainer to give his star some time to preserve him for other summer and fall races.
“He’s a horse that always feels great and rears and plays and kicks and strikes, and he’s not doing that this week, so we’re just gonna sit tight,” Knippenberg said. “He means the world to us, and he doesn’t owe us anything. It stings to be sitting there the favorite in a half-million-dollar race, but you’ve got to do right by the horse.”
Brilliant Berti will likely inherit favoritism in the Wise Dan, and he and Cherie DeVaux-trained stablemate Taking Candy both caught less-than-desirable circumstances finishing behind Mercante at this meet. Brilliant Berti inherited the early lead in the May 31 Arlington Stakes, then took pressure from Mercante before being edged by a neck in the final stages, incurring his first loss in five starts at Churchill. He won last year’s American Derby and the Opening Verse during the first week of this meet.
“He’s an ultra-consistent horse, and training really well,” DeVaux said. “He kind of got an odd trip [in the Arlington] – nobody took the lead, and he ended up there, and did the best he could, given that.”
Ultimately, jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. may have to make similar decisions Saturday. There is a lack of committed speed in this field, but Mercante’s scratch takes the most likely pace-pressing foe out of the equation as well.
Taking Candy should find circumstances more to his liking on Saturday. The winner of the Grade 3 Fair Grounds earlier this year, he missed a planned start at Keeneland following the rains that soaked Kentucky in early April. In his first start in 11 weeks, and stepping up to Grade 1 company, he was 10th, beaten just more than five lengths, in the Turf Classic. The course was officially rated good on a drizzly Derby Day.
“He’s been in good form, I just don’t think in his last race he got a turf course he appreciated,” DeVaux said. “But came out of that in good order, and he’s been training well.”
A firmer course is likely Saturday, with high temperatures in the 90s forecast for Louisville. Scattered thunderstorms are expected to move in over the weekend, but with the turf course well baked this week, it would take steady rain to put significant cut in it.
Lagynos, a graded winner on this course last year, also emerges from the Arlington, beaten less than a length by Mercante and Brilliant Berti when third. Event Detail finished fourth.
Fort Washington looks to keep riding a win streak as he comes off back-to-back Grade 3 wins in the Canadian Turf at Gulfstream and the Dinner Party at Pimlico. Mi Hermano Ramon was second by a neck in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile last month in California. Both will hope for some pace to develop in front of them.
"Sometimes, especially in these turf races, high-caliber races, so many times you run a wining race and you’re just second, third, or fourth best," Mi Hermano Ramon's trainer, Mark Glatt, said of the Shoemaker. "He doesn’t have a real quick turn of foot either. At a mile and an eighth, I think he has to have a perfect trip. He's a horse that responds best to a quickish kind of pace."
The Wise Dan joins two 3-year-old turf stakes, the $250,000 American Derby and $250,000 Tepin Stakes, as a special turf pick three wager on the Saturday card. All three races will also be part of the pick six sequence, which had a carryover of more than $1.2 million into Thursday’s card.
- Additional reporting by Marcus Hersh.
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